I like to learn new things. I actually spend a lot of time reading and listening to new ideas from a variety of sources. I get excited about what I am learning and then I try out the new ideas, I take action. Sometimes I find that those actions don’t work out like I thought they would. Other times, I find the change is amazing and makes life better.
That is the difference between being educated and actually learning something. Lots of people out there have education. They have been to school, have masters and doctoral degrees, even teach on subjects with great detail.
However, just because they are educated in something does not mean they have learned it. This is my definition of learning, just to be clear. Learning is when we take what we have been educated on and take an action to apply it, try it, do it. If we we think we learned something just because we know about it, I think we would be inaccurate in thinking that. Thinking and knowing is not learning. Learning requires doing.
Lately a lot of people have been trying to learn about racism. They are listening to podcasts, reading blogs, reading or listening to books, taking classes, talking to others about it, but I wonder if anyone is ready to start doing anything differently. Are they ready to give up anything, change any of their habits and routines to be less racist, or are they simply content to know what needs to change and talk about the changes they want to make. I don’t think you can really say you learn about racism until you can make different choices in your life about what you think you learned. You may or may not fail at those attempts, but it’s the doing that helps us actually learn, I think.
Mark Manson mentioned a study of Ethics professors in comparison to other professors of philosophy and not philosophical studies. This study was interested in whether Ethics professors were more ethical in their behavior than non-Ethics professors. Basically, they found no statistical difference in behavior of Ethics vs. non-Ethics professors. So, what you believe and know does not necessarily dictate what you do. Here is a link to the study.
That study got me thinking about myself and my circle of friends. When I have ended a friendship, it really has been based on this sort of thing. I didn’t do it consciously, it just seems to be something that has happened. I think that I find people who just want to academically know things more than actually do things less appealing to spend time with. I like a good philosophical conversation, in fact, I very much enjoy these types of conversations, but then I really try to make a change or do something different. If it inspires me to think or believe something different, I try to do something different to expand on it, to really learn it. Sometimes it just inspires me to think, so I do things to test what I think. Sometimes I change my beliefs, sometimes I do not, sometimes I just like to try new things.
I have known many people in my life who are not happy with their lives. They hate their job, or their relationships, or their finances or house etc. They talk a lot about changes they want to make in their lives. They try to learn new skills or ideas that might change their lives, but they do not do anything different. They stay in their same routines day after day, doing the same things over and over, and then wonder why the great lessons they have been studying are not changing their lives like the lessons promised to do. It is because they are not ready to actually do anything differently.
I was happy with how I managed my finances. I was in debt, I lived paycheck to paycheck, was not significantly planning for retirement, and I was not worried about this in any way. My wife at the time, worried about money all of the time, wanted to plan for retirement, wanted to live debt free, wanted me to worry about money and plan also. I did not want to worry about money. I was not going to become anxious about money matters, but her thoughts about the future and debt were interesting to me. So, I did some research about ways to interact with money differently. And I made some changes. I tried new things. I made some choices about money. Some of them improved my situation. Some of them did not. I kept trying new or different things to try to manage money more responsibly. Then I got divorced and bought a new house and my spending responsibly plan went out the window. I do have to say though, that because prior to that major life change, I had made some different choices, I had some money to spend to buy a new house and things for the new house. So, I guess I did okay.
I have been working on being mindful of things, awareness. The key to true mindfulness is non-judgment, to be aware of what is happening, but not place judgement on it as being good or bad. I actively tell myself this every day. I made choices that brought me to where I am now. Where I am now is always where I believe I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to be doing. I just keep trying to do things in alignment with what I am trying to learn. That seems to be working for me. Divorce was not bad or wrong. Being married to her was not a mistake, bad or wrong either. We married because it was what was there to do in the moment. We divorced because that was what needed to happen for us both to keep moving forward in our lives. Our paths were diverging in a serious way. Trying to stay together through this divergence would not have been easy, or helpful, in moving us on our desired paths.
My father once said he had not ever made a mistake. I scoffed at him. He’s human, and I personally felt he had made a few. Then he further explained that he always did what he thought was the best thing for the information that he had at the time. Sometimes he learned new things, and if he had known them, he might have done something different before, but he didn’t, so it was not wrong to do what he did then. It is a bit arrogant and convoluted, yes, but also not wrong. I truly believe that humans do their very best all of the time. Sometimes someone’s best is still pretty awful, but it is their best in that moment. I know that I do, even when I am at my worst, it is the best I can be right then. Then I try something different to be better the next time. I don’t give up saying, “Well that is the best I can do.” I keep trying to be better. Not because I am not good enough as I am, but because that is a value I have, to be my best self always, and do to that, I need to learn and grow constantly. My value obviously. I don’t think that needs to be everyone’s value though. Values is a whole other conversation though.
In terms of learning, I believe you cannot learn something without applying the knowledge in some way in action. You have to do something with the information to really learn it. It does not mean you have to change, but even just testing a theory or knowledge piece to say, yes or no, I do or do not want to add this to my belief system.
That is all for now.
-Namaste